They were combined because we didn't need half a dozen of the same thread.
Adding to what JadeHellbringer has said, with Giorgio76's permission, we have
Describing them as "the same thread" is a gross misrepresentation of their contents.
[snip]
My concern is that mods appear to be making decisions without actually reading the stuff they make decisions on; they appear unable to acknowledge when their decisions are in error; they do not seem to recognize that their actions can be counterproductive to the health of the forum; and in a sample case where the damage is obvious and undoing it equally simple, they prefer to stonewall (trying to save face? ???) instead of fix things.
You're not the only one. I'd say it's even a bit generous to put as you did.
My concern is that mods appear to be making decisions without actually reading the stuff they make decisions on;
they appear unable to acknowledge when their decisions are in error; they do not seem to recognize that their actions can be counterproductive to the health of the forum;
and in a sample case where the damage is obvious and undoing it equally simple, they prefer to stonewall (trying to save face? ???) instead of fix things.
You guys seem to want to have a frank discussion about this, and that’s good because the health of this forum certainly depends on real concern from the user community...
5) People the mods don't like get unwarranted warnings simply because the mods don't like them.
It just never occurred to me anyone would want to. We all make mistakes, and the system here seems to be pretty forgiving.
Objectively false. As anyone who has received a forum warning should know
Now... one issue that I think this concern does raise is how/how quickly those decisions are made when the mods are short-staffed
Two parts... 1) Again, as anyone who has received a warning should know, there are mechanisms for appealing a decision
2) This unilaterally suggests that an error was made in this case, and that is very subjective.
Posts (pre-merge) from 01 January 2019, 13:26:51 to 02 January 2019, 10:21:06 | | Posts (post-merge) from 02 January 2019, 16:03:58 to 05 January 2019, 16:34:14 | |
Giorgio Thread | 34 | 0 | |
Forum totals (ignoring users who responded to Giorgio) | 270-ish | 540-ish |
once more, the “fix” for this situation is a matter of opinion.
I’m not sure where you got the idea that undoing what has been done is “equally simple”. I can assure that, unless someone is hiding it from me, there is no single button that automaticaly un-Voltrons a thread with one simple click.
You are clearly very attached to the belief that we made a mistake and the the thread should be exploded back out into its component pieces. I would hope that the fact that I’ve taken the time to address your concerns does, in fact, confirm that your objections have been noted.
It was probably the LAM thread
My guess (and I'm still not trying to dis those points) is that they're most probably perceptions stemming from behavioral expectations brought over from more free-wheeling communities
People actually fight warnings? The one I received last year was very clearly explained, and politely so.
If someone had actually read Giorgio's posts, you could tell me how such a diverse variety of questions seemed to them to be a single topic, and then either I could acknowledge that logic as reasonable or you could acknowledge that logic as flawed. :-\
You instead choose to call my claim false while deflecting away from it, and then concede more generally that you guys maybe sometimes can be a little uncareful. I realize that this isn't the most comfortable thing for you guys to discuss, but you do understand that you are being unnecessarily evasive and that your evasiveness contributes to the problem?
For our purposes here, suffice to say that my experience with the staff, along with the manner in which you raised those points (plus Weirdo's comments later) do not create an image of diverse perspectives.
I am aware that the image may not accurately reflect the reality, but the issue at hand isn't what you're like behind the curtain. It's to do with how you guys interface out here with us.
Surely, no matter where we set the bar, the merging of Giorgio's threads wasn't something that had to be rushed.
You say you value diversity of perspectives, and recognize that any given opinion - even from a mod - might not be the "best" for BattleTech. Since you feel that having more eyes on a subject is a positive thing, then if an interested third party were to start a thread on a public-facing issue like the Giorgio merge where warnings and appeals aren't a consideration, why wouldn't you stop and take advantage of that discussion to check and refine your approach?
As a more general thing, if the mod staff feel like you don't have enough hands for what you want to do, you ought to consider more than just the "magic number" slider. There may be other factors to streamline, and it may even be possible to diffuse some load from behind the curtain out across the userbase.
Again, that's not the point I'm making. Using this thread as an example:
...snip...
If you guys really did think your response to Giorgio was correct and just wanted me to go away, something like "We think our move will get Giorgio more responses and keep regular topics from being pushed off the front page of other boards. It's possible we're mistaken - let's give it a week and see how it goes" would have been ideal. It acknowledges the possibility of error, might get me to wait long enough I lose interest, the thread's probably unsavable in a week regardless, and everybody comes away better informed for the next time.
...snip...
"I'm new, help me do BattleTech" type threads normally accrue responses over more than a 24-hour period, and most of Giorgio's topics had not reached a natural stopping point by the time of the merge.
So on the topic of whether or not mods can admit fault:Putting the merged Master thread in Challenges and Gatherings was bizarre and it's good that you took it out. But trying to hold that up as proof of anything while denying the evidence and arguing that the very idea of "error" is too nebulous for an error to have occurred? You're being evasive twice in a row! You're stonewalling! You get that, right?
- did you really not know that the move & merge would produce these results?
- do you acknowledge that these results are clear-cut and objective?
- do you acknowledge that these results show clear damage?
- ignoring feasibility for the moment, would reversing these results be something you consider desirable (and if not, why)?
Is it? Moving the Master Thread into General Discussion would help a little (getting it out from the "dark corner" of the RPG forum into a place where people will actually see it), but I don't think that addresses the root causes. I think the root causes are measurable and can be identified empirically.
You're either presenting a strawman or assuming I know how the backend moderation tools work, and either way it's unhelpful. Surely you're not claiming that you can move and merge those threads, then also rearrange the OP contents, all with a single click?
The Giorgioverse thread isn't very long. Without knowing the backend tools specifically, I would assume that you can select multiple posts to move as a batch - is that not the case? Can posts only be moved individually, one by one? (And even if that is the case, are you really saying that editing and culling OPs from the merged thread took fewer clicks?)
...snip...
I wasn't even asking you to explode the thread back out into its component pieces.
If you ever needed proof that you guys don't read, that's it. You didn't give me enough information to decide anything therefore I hadn't yet decided anything. But the fact you think that's where we would have ended up just again makes it look (and again, talking about the appearance out here rather than whatever the truth is behind the curtain) like you guys can't admit when you're wrong.
and in a sample case where the damage is obvious and undoing it equally simple, they prefer to stonewall (trying to save face? ???) instead of fix things.
I started the thread by asking "how does this make sense" and then, when you guys were confronted with the possibility that your logic might be flawed, your collective response has been to tell me I'm wrong or misguided to raise that possibility. For my part, I am and have always been open to having my reasoning disputed. It's frankly kind of bizarre that you would assume otherwise.
If you want to address my concerns and note my objections, the most important is this: it is not wrong to contest a moderator's reasoning, and moderators should not be so difficult when a reasonable possibility of error has been raised.